Josefina Banks at a recent rehearsal for Call Forth A Woman. The play, a collection of monologues and vignettes amplifying women from the Bible, returns to the Shubert Theatre on April 26. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Josefina Banks sat at the center of a makeshift stage, collecting herself. In one universe, it was just another night in North Branford, the chill of winter still low and cool in the spring air. In another, she was Mary, Mother of Jesus, recounting the story of her son's life and death. A small audience of other actors sat nearby, holding between them the stories of Jochebed and Rahab, Ruth and Naomi, Athaliah and the Wailing Women.
"How did I reconcile the biggest miracle coming through me?" Banks asked, looking right up at the other women in the room. Suddenly, she was every mother there. "I guided him. Protected him. loved him as every mother loves his children."
That story—and so many others like it—is front and center in Call Forth A Woman, an original dramatic work from playwright, director, performer and Democratic State Rep. Treneé McGee coming to the Shubert Theatre on Saturday, April 26. For McGee, whose faith has long guided her work in and out of politics, it is a chance to amplify and celebrate women in the Bible, many of whom are merely mentioned and then cast aside.
The performance marks an encore: Call Forth A Woman premiered at the Shubert in May of last year. Since that time, McGee has continued building out the script, with new characters and twice-weekly rehearsals that have become a master class in active listening and community care. It is also a full-circle moment: the Shubert is where McGee, who graduated from Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School in 2012, got her start.
Tickets and more information are available here.
McGee: "I want women to know that they have a voice. It might sound different, but these stories are universal."
"Women were hidden in scripture because they were hidden in society," she said at a recent rehearsal at Abba's House International Fellowship in North Branford. "I am a woman who believes in the power of women. I knew that I had to share this story with the world. I want women to know that they have a voice. It might sound different, but these stories are universal."
The play has been several years in the making. While the concept may be as old as the Bible itself, McGee began thinking about it around 2019, largely as a byproduct of her Christian faith. As the daughter of two pastors (her parents, Paris & Denya McGee, are the founders of Abba's House), McGee has spent her life surrounded by scripture. So it was painful, a few years ago, when "I heard someone use the Bible as a weapon in a harmful way against women," she said.
It pushed her to make her idea into a reality. In August 2023, she began to write the script on a retreat at St Joseph's Convent, which she credits with giving her the space to think. She started with what felt like the origin story of origin stories: not Eve, but Shiphrah and Puah, the midwives who delivered Moses. Or in her words, "they delivered the deliverer."
The stories flowed out of her. The whole premise of the Exodus revolves around heroic women: there was Moses' mother Yocheved, who floated her son down the Nile in order to save his life and later disguised herself as his wet nurse to remain close to him. There was Moses' sister Miriam (in the show, played by Sarah Richardson and Unedra Muley), who watched from the reeds as Pharaoh's daughter pulled him from the water. There was Pharaoh's daughter, Bithiah, the eldest of his children, who pulled the baby Moses from the Nile and raised him as her own.
Nikilia Reid as Athaliah.
"You have this super fierce connection between Moses' young sister to his midwives to his adoptive mother, who then takes Moses and brings him back to his birth mother to breastfeed him," she said on an episode of WNHH Community Radio’s “Arts Respond.” "So the story is just so extremely powerful .... What I loved so much, even in this whole story, is that these women radically transformed society and culture just by being women."
When she finished her stay at St. Joseph’s, the research and writing didn’t stop. To the contrary, McGee was amazed and delighted by what she found: there was Huldah (Jocelyn Bromell), a seventh-century prophet who taught the Mishna at a time when seeking education was itself a struggle. There was Rahab (Tami Nichole), who protected Israelites in her home when soldiers came to her door, and asked her to turn them over.
There was Jehosheba (McGee), who hid the infant Jehoash (Jeremiah Brabham) from his power-hungry grandmother, Athaliah (Nikilia Reid), after she had the rest of his family murdered in cold blood. There was Deborah (Reeshemah Norfleet), whose skills as a judge are rarely spoken about when the name is invoked. The stories went on and on and on.
"Women have been silenced for far too long," she said. "This is to show the world that we do exist, and that we are great."
Top: Miya Brown and Jeremiah Brabham, who plays a young Jehoash. Bottom: Kiara Michele Simmons, who plays Mahlah, the Mother of Sisera, and a Wailing Woman.
On a recent Tuesday night, that was clear as cast members warmed up in the sanctuary at Abba's House, where they rehearse twice a week. As actors arrived, McGee buzzed between a director's table and people in the room, checking in on each to see what they needed. Gospel music played in the background, swelling over the carpet and drifting towards the ceiling. Just after 6 p.m., she pulled them into a circle and began to put the day's stress aside.
"Ok, everybody, circle up," she said. "Big breath in. Hold—" a beat, in which someone could have heard a pin drop "—And release. Take some time to focus on yourselves. What are you releasing?"
Actors gave out one-word answers, clocking their feelings—mostly gratitude, delivered in smooth pronouncements of "happy" and "joyful" and "here"—before digging into scenes. Then they fanned out across the room, and got to work.
Nichole, who is returning to the stage after 15 years away, turned the clock back millennia, opening her script on a podium as she transformed into Rahab. In that world, she was in her home in Jericho, ready to deny entry to two ill-intentioned spies (read: members of law enforcement) when their ominous knock came at her door. Back in the present day, in a month that had already seen ICE raids in New Haven and across the country, the story didn't feel so far away at all.
"Good," McGee said as she watched, one hand to her chin like Rodin's Thinker. "Take your time."
Nichole slowed down, letting the audience feel each word. On a makeshift stage, she straddled generations of women, bringing Rahab's story into the present. She built a whole world sentence by sentence, letting the audience see the stakes—the people hidden in her home, the fear of arrest—for themselves. When she announced that "I am still standing, and I live to tell the mercies of God," the words remained full and sweet in the air.
"Just the fact that she took a huge risk—not a small risk, she took a huge risk by hiding the Israelites—she not only put herself in danger but her family as well," Nichole later said in an interview on WNHH Community Radio's "Arts Respond." "It was that important to her to go with her heart and decide to follow God. And I think I've learned about risk-taking, because I wasn't much of a risk-taker ... it was kind of embodying Rahab's character, and I would definitely have to say what I've learned, and what I have gotten, far outweighs what I am putting in."
Back inside Abba's House, Banks was taking the stage as the Virgin Mary, using a single, earth-colored woolen wrap to mark the transition from pregnancy to motherhood, motherhood to mourning. One moment, the fabric was beneath her shirt, as if it was a growing fetus in utero. The next, she cradled it in her arms, the gesture tender and universal, wordless. Then it was around her shoulders, as she steeled herself and prepared to tell the story of his death. Soon, it would be a veil over her soft curls.
“My son was crucified for your transgressions and mine,” she read. Her voice broke: in the show, she must recount her son's murder over and over again, rehearsal after rehearsal. The outcome never changes. When she cries "My son, my son, I grieve!," she is not just Mary, but every mother who has lost a child to state-sanctioned violence, from Kadiatou Diallo to Lezley McSpadden-Head to Ms. Emma Jones right here in New Haven.
Back on stage, Banks let herself feel the full force of the words. She let out a shuddering breath, remembering her deep and infinite love for her child. McGee, listening intently, nodded. She delivered comments only after Banks had spoken her final words.
"The word begotten, hit the t's in it," McGee suggested. "All of us are on these journeys with these characters. We have to find the really vulnerable places."
"If I were to say, 'Describe your child,' you'd have joy," she continued. She remembered a mom who had told her that her young son, who she loved with a fierceness and intensity that was unparalleled, really "challenged my gangsta." The phrase, said with the candidness and grace of a parent who can hold their child's full complexity, delighted her. "People are gonna walk away from this with so many interpretations."
That’s just one hope of the show, McGee later added. Another, which is never totally finished, is to give cast members (and herself) a master class in being present, listening more actively, and communicating more effectively on and off the stage. At one point during the evening, cast members spread out, practicing their lines in pairs as they walked toward each other and linked arms. Then they regrouped, and got back to their individual monologues.
McGee's mother Denya, who plays Naomi, ran over her lines as she waited for her moment in the spotlight. A social worker by day, she later stressed the importance of that focus on listening, both on and beyond the stage.
"We work hard at trying to make sure that we're active listening, and really sitting in the moment," Denya McGee said. "And really sitting in the moment. Not thinking of how you're gonna respond, not thining of how you're gonna come back, but really listening, really sitting in that moment, taking in what that they're feeling. Taking in their perspective, and just sitting there."
"It's great to see this in theater," she added. "It's great to go into our practices and see this concept of active listening taking place in creative space. I love it."
Listen to an interview with Treneé McGee, Tami Nichole and Denya McGee above. Call Forth A Woman returns to the Shubert Theatre on April 26. Tickets and more information are available here.